General Unknown Screening by Ion Trap LC/MS/MS

During the investigation of aviation accidents, postmortem specimens from accident victims are submitted to the Federal Aviation Administrations Civil Aerospace Medical Institute CAMI for toxicological analysis. The first, and perhaps most important, step in the analysis process is the initial screening of biological specimens for illicit, medically prescribed, and over-the-counter compounds that may be present and could have been the cause of the accident. Currently, our General Unknown Screening GUS procedure involves both gas chromatographymass spectrometry GCMS, liquid chromatographydiode array detection LCDAD and fluorescence detection techniques. Both techniques have inherent limitations that prevent the detection of certain types of compounds. LCDAD, however, is more limited due to poor sensitivity and specificity. Therefore, our laboratory developed and validated an LCMSMS procedure that provides far superior sensitivity and specificity to that of LCDAD. The combination of GCMS with LCMSMS will allow for the detection of more compounds at lower concentrations than our current techniques.